


i'll walk with you

by segmentcalled



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Communication, Consent Issues, Depression, Established Relationship, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Supernatural Elements, Tags Are Hard, in a myriad of ways, mostly a lot of processing and learning how to navigate all this, referenced suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:16:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/segmentcalled/pseuds/segmentcalled
Summary: Truth be told, they’re both scared about the next month.probably not gonna make a ton of sense without the context ofthe actual au♥
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	i'll walk with you

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486790) by [fishcola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishcola/pseuds/fishcola). 

> set about a month after the last installment of [sommeil](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1324160). events from the fic are discussed so like be mindful of that!!! there's some heavy shit that gets talked about and thought about!
> 
> title from [night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akcMXGSMMRU) by the altogether, which is maybe a little on-the-nose but, like, idc
> 
> anyway so i read this fic for the first time this weekend and literally haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. THANKS FISH YOU GENIUS, YOU OWE ME A BOX OF TISSUES FOR ALL THE CRYING I DID (<333333)

Truth be told, they’re both scared about the next month.

Pat can see it approaching in Brian’s twitchy hands, the way he clenches them tight reflexively, the way he goes tense all through his body and squeezes his eyes shut tight like that’ll make it quieter when Simone knocks over a pile of something-or-other across the bullpen and shouts in surprise.

But it’s not like before. Not the same kind of afraid. It’s a kind they’re able to talk about now, thank fuck.

Brian curls up against Pat’s side on the couch, Pat’s arm around his shoulders, and takes Pat’s free hand in both of his. Cuddling with Brian when he’s like this is like cuddling a person-shaped space heater, and so Pat shrugged off his hoodie before he sat down and watched Brian’s eyes drop to Pat’s arms.

Brian doesn’t say anything, so Pat doesn’t either. The clawmarks scored down his arm from — from that first time they — have healed into what are definitely going to be scars, along with the nick on his forehead and the myriad other reminders of his foolhardy stubbornness.

Pat leans over to kiss the crease between Brian’s eyebrows as Brian probes his fingers over the marks his other half left on Pat. There’s a hundred jokes that spring to Pat’s mind, but he swallows them off the tip of his tongue — _you should’ve seen the other guy_ is absolutely, categorically not appropriate for the situation, and so he doesn’t say a word. All he can do is be thankful that both of them aren’t covered in scary-looking bruises, finally, and hope they wake up tomorrow in the same condition.

The thing is, he supposes, is that neither of them are entirely sure. Brian might know better than Pat; he’s admitted to trying to communicate with Fluffy even when it’s not, like, a matter of life and death.

“He’s got such big feelings,” Brian had said to Pat one night, his voice quiet, as he traced his fingers along Pat’s spine. “It feels weird saying it, but I think he’s trying. Like, to understand. I don’t think he meant to hurt you in — in a malicious way. Not, uh, not lately, at least.”

“Good to know.”

“I, uh. This is gonna sound stupid.”

“I’m sure it won’t.”

“You’re biased as hell, Patrick, you think the sun shines out my goddamn ass for some reason — don’t _wiggle your eyebrows_, jeez, how are you so horny, old man!”

“I just like making you feel good.”

“You’re sweet.”

“Mm, no, you’re not distracting me, what were you gonna tell me?”

“Oh. I mean, it’s just like, I’ve been trying to figure out how to communicate with him, right? Like, I know I can, and I have, and I’m assuming with practice it’ll get easier. I just — didn’t want to, before. Didn’t want to think we could be the same. But, um. Like, I ruled out DID super fast, ‘cause wow it’s not like that comes with violence or, y’know, fucking _claws_, but I did sort of think, like, well, okay, so systems figure out ways to communicate, and maybe there’s some guidance out there that could be useful for me, so I’ve tried meditating? And, shit, Pat, it actually kinda works.”

“That’s so good, Brian!”

Brian’s cheeks went pink. “I’m not saying it’s a miracle cure or anything. But it’s easier to, uh, to get ideas across that way. I feel like we might’ve made some progress. I dunno. I think he knows not to do what — what he did — not like that — I don’t think that’s gonna happen again.” His voice goes weird and tight when he talks about this, every time.

But Pat, who’d been sleepy and well-fucked and missed the finer points of things like _tone_ and _common sense_ and _reading the room_, made a wisecrack like, “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to fuck him. Just give him a crash course in lube for me, ‘kay?”

Brian had jolted back like he’d been physically struck, with an anguished “_Patrick_,” and Pat sat up too, quick as anything, to lace his fingers with Brian’s and talk fuckin’ fast.

“It’s fine, baby, it’s fine, I’m okay, you know I’m okay, I was teasing, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that like that — oh, no, baby, please don’t cry, Brian — _Brian_ —”

Brian pulled back abruptly and flung his hands into the air in frustrated desperation. “I just hate knowing I can hurt you like that.” His hands dropped to tangle in his hair; Pat set to gently reclaiming them.

“Anyone can hurt anyone,” Pat murmured, lifting Brian’s knuckles to his lips.

“Not like _that_ —”

“Exactly like that, Brian. It _happens_ to people. People who don’t turn into werewolves, even. Or people whose boyfriends don’t turn into werewolves. And there was nothing you could do about it. I made fucked-up choices, I got hurt, I’ll do better next time. That’s what I do.”

Brian gave a short huff of an exhale. “Next time tell me your whole stupid plan first.”

“Next time you’ll be fully in the know, promise. No more sneaking.”

“Good,” Brian said, and climbed into Pat’s lap to wrap his arms around him. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Brian.”

So, there’s been progress. And now they’re just waiting for night to come. Brian’s still intent on staying awake as long as he can manage it, so Pat keeps petting at him.

Brian didn’t say a word about the scars. He has the worse of it between the two of them; Pat’s definitely seen what the other guy’s done to him. They both know the situation’s not quite comparable, but it’s impossible to argue semantics — or, honestly, even speak, really — when Brian presses his lips to clawmarks with such tender remorse that it aches deep in Pat’s chest.

“Do you think we should fuck first,” Brian says.

Brian’s tone makes Pat’s heart go skittery with near-horror for a second. It’s nothing at all that resembles the sweet horny enthusiastic Brian he sees so often. It’s — he’s — instead he’s resigned. Exhausted. “Not if you don’t want to,” Pat says, as gently as he is physically capable of.

“I’m just so fucking _tired_,” Brian says, pushing his face hard against Pat’s bony shoulder. Fuck, he must be. He’s only barely managing to claw himself towards sleeping on an even sort of healthy schedule. “But I don’t want you to get hurt,” he adds, in a smaller voice. Ah. _Shit_.

“That’s between me and Fluffy,” Pat says, in an attempt at consolation, but Brian makes a frustrated sound.

“I don’t want to wake up like I did last month,” he says, and his voice wavers and Pat holds him tighter. “I’ve — I’ve tried to communicate with him. I don’t _think_ he would do things the same. But I don’t _know_.”

If Pat’s honest with himself, he’s tired too. Deep in his bones. Certainly nothing like Brian, he’s sure, but enough that what he wishes for tonight is another sleepy-cuddly Fluffy, another night to rest. He thinks they all deserve it. But Pat can’t fault him for it if he’s gonna want to do more than just go back to sleep. Poor pup gets only a couple nights a month to see through his own eyes.

“I’ll handle him,” Pat says. Brian opens his mouth to protest. “I’ll be fine, Brian, I swear.”

Brian looks at him mutinously, like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Are you mad?” Pat says softly, and then curses himself for it, for inviting trouble, for pressing the issue —

Brian sighs. “I’m not mad. Not at you. Not going to bed angry, promise.” He kisses Pat’s cheek for emphasis. “I just — ugh. I want to make this go okay.”

“There’s only so much you can do,” Pat says. “Don’t — Brian. I mean, what I mean is, is you’ve done everything you know how to do to make sure everything’s okay. And it’s okay to let the rest be up to me and him.”

“I trust you,” Brian says. “I’m not so sure about him.”

Pat thinks, but doesn’t say, that Brian’s probably got it backwards.

“You should get some sleep,” Pat says instead. “I’ll — I need to, uh —”

“I’ve got an idea,” Brian says.

“Mm?”

“Let me prep you. Please. I want to. Pat, stoppit, don’t make that face. If you’re going to anyway, I wanna help. I just don’t feel like getting myself off. ‘M already exhausted, don’t need to make it worse.”

Pat holds his eyes-narrowed suspicious look for another second, but acquiesces. He’s better at it now, not so clumsy, actually has a sense of what feels good, but Brian’s infinitely better. Brian likes to press kisses to Pat’s back and shoulders and the back of his neck as he works him open, likes to make Pat shiver and whine and moan. Likes to whisper soft praises to him of how good he is, how perfect, how he takes it so well and looks so beautiful the whole time, how much he loves him. All this ‘til Pat is shaking and trying not to grind his dick into the mattress for how bad he wants it.

Pat’s keyed-up like this just in time for Brian to kiss him sweet and sleepy over and over and over again, until his kisses aren’t so much kisses as they are pushing his face against Pat’s, until they aren’t kisses at all, and Brian is asleep.

God damn it. Now Pat’s not gonna get any rest until Fluffy’s up.

He doesn’t have to wait long, though. He hears Brian stir, stretch, and suddenly Pat is having to remind himself _don’t flinch don’t flinch don’t flinch when he looks at you it’s gonna be fine, it’s gotta be fine, it has to be_ —

He whines and looks up at Pat with those bloodred eyes, and he is very still, which Pat is not expecting. Pat was sort of braced for him to launch himself at Pat immediately.

“Hey, bud,” Pat says, and he rolls over to nuzzle his face right into Pat’s torso. Pat sighs — shakier than he’d like to admit — and sinks his fingers into his hair. “Hey, you. Glad to have you back. Loving the new snuggly side. It’s real cute. You’re a real cutie.”

Pat’s never gotten the impression Fluffy particularly understands what Pat says, but he seems to respond to the affectionate tone. He hugs Pat tighter — not too tight, though, that’s good, he likes to breathe — and pushes his face up against Pat’s chest.

Something pings in his mind, a memory. Brian said he’d made Fluffy cry. Was it about this? About Pat? Can’t be. Could it be?

“I’m right here, pup. You haven’t seen the last of me. Not going anywhere.”

He’s holding onto Pat the same way Brian does when he doesn’t want to leave but knows he has to. Like he’s afraid if he lets go that Pat’s not gonna be here when he turns back around.

“Hey, you. Hey, hey,” Pat says, in that same way he does when Brian’s crying and he wants him to look at him so he can try and help him out of whatever spiral he’s gotten himself into, “I got you. See? You got me, too. I don’t fuck around and tell people I love ‘em all willy-nilly, you know. Meant it last time, mean it this time. Come up here and let me look at you.” Pat nudges at his chin to demonstrate the point, and he unfolds himself and sits up and leans in towards Pat.

Brian doesn’t sit in chairs like any sort of sensible human being; Fluffy takes this to the inevitable next step up. His legs are in sort of a butterfly position, leaning forward with his weight braced on his hands on the mattress. It’s a distinctly animalistic pose, although Pat feels a little rude for thinking so, for some reason.

Those blood-red eyes lock onto Pat’s, as if they could stare into his soul. Pat knows he should look away. Do the deferential thing. Back down, show his belly. But he’s so beautiful. Pat could sit there and look Brian in the face all day long, and Fluffy’s eyes are captivating. Wide and round like Brian’s but so different, too. Fucking _intense_, but in another direction. Gone are the distractions of the million thoughts that flit through his mind at every moment. Fluffy has singular focus on exactly what he wants, and what he wants is _Pat_.

He’s not sure why he’s comparing them like this. He tries not to make a habit of it, but — fuck, now that he’s still enough and calm enough for Pat to draw lines between their softer parts, he doesn’t mind thinking about that as much. They’re discrete individuals and the same, too. Pat’s not sure how it works. Not sure he ever will.

But when he kisses Pat, all that matters is he’s _here_.

Brian must have done something. He has to have. Pat doesn’t know what he did, or how he did it, but when Fluffy pins him and looks like he’s gonna just — uh — go for it, Pat reflexively gasps _stop, wait, hang on a sec_, and maybe there’s some pitch of fear in his voice that he can’t help but he doesn’t mean for it to be there, and maybe it isn’t there, but — the point is, the point is that Fluffy jerks back.

Is Brian teaching him _words?_ Or just _stop?_ Or just how to read Pat?

He doesn’t know. But he’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Or a gift werewolf.

Pat does, in point of fact, find their arrangement much more equitable this time. He curls up around Pat’s back, his arm around Pat, holding him close — god, he’s so warm, it’s wonderful — and nuzzles his face against the back of Pat’s neck.

“Love you, you terrible horny thing,” Pat says, all affection, and he huffs an exhale against Pat’s skin and pulls him closer.

When Brian wakes up to find that the only marks on Pat are hickeys and the odd mostly-accidental bite or clawmark, he hugs Pat with strength to rival his other half and buries his face against Pat’s shoulder.

They stay in bed like that — Brian asleep draped over Pat, Pat not much longer for the world after that — until they both wake up again midafternoon to make something of their day.

* * *

Things aren’t so easily fixed, though.

Turns out you can’t just say things are better and then they are. You have to, ugh, _work_ for it.

As that time of the following month starts to roll around, Brian seems to fold in on himself, to go quiet. It worries Pat. He tries not to push, and Brian tells him there’s nothing to worry about, but Pat can’t help it. The quiet desperate fear, the hopelessness, seems to be gone from Brian; his eyes don’t go hollow like they used to sometimes. And Pat knows he’s sleeping. He’s come around the opposite direction, honestly; he languishes in bed on the weekends and takes naps with Pat when he never did before — _Pat how do you nap so much you’re wasting your daaaay_ — and seems pensive and a little moody.

He’s at Pat’s often. He comes home with him after work. They have an honest-to-god routine, now, for when Brian’s there, for dinner and showers and fucking around and hanging out and bedtimes.

It’s dark outside, when Pat’s done showering and put his pajamas on. He goes back into the bedroom —

and his heart fucking _stops_, all the air goes out of his lungs, his fucking ears ring.

The window is open and Brian is not in the bedroom.

Pat grabs the doorknob so his legs don’t fucking give out under him and —

oh, _Christ_, he’s right there, sitting on the fire escape, chill as anything. Not staring down; his chin is lifted, looking up at the skyline. Pat watches him exhale a cloud of smoke, and sighs deeply. God damn it.

He rattles the doorknob and makes a point of approaching the window loudly so he doesn’t scare Brian, and finagles himself over next to him.

“I thought you quit,” Pat says, as a greeting.

“How did _you_ know?” Brian says, as an accusation, and Pat winces. “Were you in cahoots with Laura?”

“Might’ve been.”

“Goddamn it, Pat,” Brian sighs, stubbing out the cigarette and abandoning it.

“Sorry,” Pat says, and isn’t. He intends to leave it at that, but then bursts out with, “I just — god, kid, you’re a singer, why would you —? Isn’t that bad for your voice?”

Brian gives a derisive sort of scoff. “Right. Bad for my voice, just like fucking screaming my throat raw a few nights a month is. Get _him_ to quit _that_, won’t you?”

“We’re working on it,” Pat says, quietly. “You know he was good last time. He was real sweet, even.”

“Right,” Brian says. “Right. Cool. Maybe next time he’ll do vocal warmups before he shrieks.”

“Brian —”

Brian _glares_.

“...Did something happen?”

Brian sighs, angry, and drags his hands backwards through his hair. “Jonah wrote a thing and wanted me to read through it to see if it was, y’know, worth working on, and I — it just —” He makes a frustrated sound. “It’s all fucked up, Pat.”

“You sing all the time, though.”

“Not seriously. Not like that, I don’t. Anyone can wander around the house and sing whatever’s going through their head. You know how fucking hard I worked for the range I had? You wouldn’t, I’m sure, you never did vocal training, but it’s — I — I work my ass off my whole _life_ and in a year it’s gone. What’s the _fucking_ point.”

“Let’s go inside,” Pat says, instead of answering, because he doesn’t want to have this conversation with their feet hanging off the edge of the fire escape.

“You afraid of heights?”

Pat meets the challenge in Brian’s eyes, holds his gaze. “Yes,” he says, and in whatever sense he means it, Brian can’t argue with that.

Pat wraps them both in his comforter when they’re inside, and Brian attaches himself to Pat’s side.

“I know it’s bad for me,” Brian says, determinedly staring at the blanket instead of Pat. “It’s bad for your lung capacity and your voice and also every other goddamn part of you. And I really _have_ mostly quit, promise. Today just sucked. And. It’s more socially acceptable to blame that than my friggin’ evil twin.”

“He’s not —”

“It’s a figure of speech, Pat,” Brian says, sighing. He rubs his hands down his face and sighs a second time. “I think I might get why I got fucked up so bad before you were helping.”

“Yeah?”

“He just — y’know. He wants basic things. You’re right, he’s not hard to figure out. But it’s hard to — to feel good when the thing in your head is just screaming hatred at you. He’s not doing that to me, for what it’s worth. Not like that, anyway. That’s… that’s just me. But how would he know that? All he knew is something inside him was making him hurt and all he knows how to do is fight.” Brian’s voice breaks a little, but he continues.

“I’d feel better blaming him if he’d done it on purpose. But it’s my fault too. We’re the same. My thoughts become his and his are mine. I’m trying not to hate him, Pat, I promise. But my whole life — it’s just, I just, I wish I could give this another shot but _kinder_. Better prepared. I know he was bad — fuck, not even bad. At first he was just _hungry_. That’s why he chased Zuko. It’s not his fault. It’s just his instincts.” Brian sniffles. “But I wanted him _out_ of me. It almost ruined my life. And it’s not even his fault.”

“You were scared too,” Pat says softly. “If it makes sense for him to lash out in fear, it makes sense for you, too.”

“I’m not a fucking —” Brian starts, and then groans and drops his face into his hands. “God, though, I am a fucking animal.”

“Brian, _what_ —”

Brian waves a hand impatiently. “I mean that all of us are. Maybe me especially, right, ‘cause that’s the — _hah_ — the nature of the beast, but tear everything down and we all want the same shit. We just wanna live. So maybe Fluffy’s just a bare-bones version of me. No pomp and circumstance. Just the base of the hierarchy of needs, right?”

“Glad to know fucking me is a basic need.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Brian says, digging his elbow into Pat’s ribs, but it gets a laugh out of him anyway. “I dunno, Pat. I couldn’t tell you what he actually is to me. But he’s here, and I’m stuck with him, and he’s stuck with me, and maybe it sucks, but maybe it’ll keep getting better?”

Pat kisses his head. “I think it will.”

“You optimist, you,” Brian says, leaning into him.

“Someone around here’s gotta be.”

Brian lays his head against Pat’s chest, his ear against Pat’s heartbeat. “Thank you for staying,” he whispers.

“Thank you for coming back,” Pat says, so softly, into Brian’s hair, quietly enough he wouldn’t be sure Brian could hear except for the way his arms tighten around Pat, hugging him tighter. “I love you.”

“I love _you_,” Brian says, lifting his head. He kisses Pat, just once, so lightly. “Sorry if I smell like smoke.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but, uh. Little bit.”

Brian laughs. “I’ll go brush my teeth. You find us a movie, okay?”

“Okay,” Pat says, and steals one more kiss before Brian slides off the bed and skips away to the bathroom. Not better, not cured, but maybe a little lighter, knowing Pat’s got his back.

He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> the biggest thanks in the world to fishcola for writing such moving things and also for being a wonderful human being and friend !!!!!!!! ♥


End file.
